Campaign 2014: Ending all-Democratic rule in Illinois with promises to 'shake up Springfield' and to take down public-sector 'union bosses'
Rauner's $18 watch
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 Gov. Pat Quinn makes the case for funding Monetary Assistance Program scholarships for low-income college students in May 2014.
With his deep pockets, success in as a private equity investor and promise to "shake up" Springfield, Gov. Bruce Rauner made a persuasive case to voters that he should be Illinois' governor.
I covered the 2014 governor’s race from the journalistic middle, breaking dozens of enterprising stories that tested the mettle of both Rauner and Quinn and that other media followed. I appeared frequently as an analyst on WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight" and did on-air, election-night analysis on the campaign for NBC5, WLS-AM and WGN-AM. Rauner wore a Carhartt jacket and an $18 watch and dropped the "g" from any word he spoke with an "-ing" ending. But that sometimes-clunky effort at folksiness wasn't what enabled him to throttle Quinn. The governor-to-be put a record-setting $27.5 million of his own wealth into a campaign that offered sparse policy positions and effectively deflected questions about his flip-flops on raising the minimum wage, his enormous personal riches and his record running a successful private equity firm in Chicago. Quinn entered the 2014 campaign as one of the most poorly regarded governors in the country, having presided over an unpopular, 2011 temporary increase in the state income tax, which ranked among his few big legislative successes during his five years in office. Despite cultivating a reformer image his entire political career, Quinn faced charges of patronage at the Illinois Department of Transportation, where a federal judge installed a hiring monitor. And his showpiece 2010 anti-violence grant program, the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, drew scrutiny from federal investigators. |
Above, I'm on the set of NBC5, offering political insights the night the November 2014 governor's race was called in Bruce Rauner's favor. The appearance lasted an hour alongside anchors Alison Rosati, Rob Stafford and political editor Carol Marin.
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